The year is 1912. The world is reeling from the worldwide Great Depression, which has left every nation on earth reeling financially. During this time, two camps of nations have risen to prominence. The nations of America, France, England, and Russia, despite the economic collapses, have managed to start to pull themselves out of the Great Depression. On the other side is the UMN, the United Monster Nations, comprised of Transylvania (home of the vampires), Luciansburg (home of the werewolves, or Lycans), Covenia (home of the Witches or Wiccans), and Decemus (home of the zombies, or the walking dead). Both groups of nations are weary of one another. The UMN is ruled over with an iron hand by Grand Chancellor Alucard, who has brought to an end the centuries-long war between the monster races and has had the monster clans united in their hatred of mankind. At the outset of our story, the UMN has been on a military buildup for more than ten years now and is planning a massed military assault against the human nations listed above for control of the Earth. Though they preach for peace with America, this is just a clever ruse by Lord Alucard to buy his nations more time to prepare for war. One can only imagine the horrors of a conventional war. Gone are the days of lining up soldiers and having them simply walk into oncoming fire. This is a new century with new ways of warfare. A conventional war could mean the deaths of countless millions of lives, both monster and human.

Humans and Hyenas examines the origins and development of the relationship between the two to present an accurate and realistic picture of the hyena and its interactions with people. The hyena is one of the most maligned, misrepresented and defamed mammals. It is still, despite decades of research-led knowledge, seen as a skulking, cowardly scavenger rather than a successful hunter with complex family and communal systems. Hyenas are portrayed as sex-shifting deviants, grave robbers and attackers of children in everything from African folk tales through Greek and Roman accounts of animal life, to Disney’s The Lion King depicting hyenas with a lack of respect and disgust, despite the reality of their behaviour and social structures. Combining the personal, in-depth mining of scientific papers about the three main species and historical accounts, Keith Somerville delves into our relationship with hyenas from the earliest records from millennia ago, through the accounts by colonisers, to contemporary coexistence, where hyenas and humans are forced into ever closer proximity due to shrinking habitats and loss of prey. Are hyenas fated to retain their bad image or can their amazing ability to adapt to humans more successfully than lions and other predators lead to a shift in perspective? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the environmental sciences, conservation biology, and wildlife and conservation issues.

Could half-human, half-ape creatures really roam the Himalayan Mountains and the forests of North America? If tales of Bigfoot, Yeti, and Sasquatch are just stories, why do so many people report seeing these monsters in remote areas around the world? What would it be like to come upon a footprint of the Abominable Snowman or catch sight of Mothman, and how can you tell if the creature lurking down the path is part human and part beast? In Half-Human Monsters and Other Fiends, young readers will read historical stories and modern-day accounts of encounters with half-human monsters. Kids will get all the facts they need to help them spot Bigfoot, Mothman, ghouls, and other supernatural creatures. Children will also investigate the truth behind the stories, exploring the fears and superstitions of different cultures and looking at the scientific facts that might explain the seemingly unexplainable. If you love a nerve-racking story but also want to investigate the truth behind the myths, this is the book for you!

Isaac, eleven, a clepsit adopted by humans, and Wren, a human adopted by clepsits, face the voracans that are trying to claw their way out of their crowded underground home.

Monsters have been mocked, maligned, and besparkled by the insidious human horde. In these horrifying tales, monsters and monster advocates reveal how they are adapting to stay scary and finding innovative ways to navigate the 21st century to feed their appetite for human flesh.With over 280 pages of bone-grinding, tongue-biting, claw-raising monster stories from some of the biggest names in horror, this is an anthology that promises to tame even the hairiest monster fever.

Whether a side-street skirmish or an all-out war, fight scenes bring action to the pages of every kind of fiction. But a poorly done or unbelievable fight scene can ruin a great book in an instant. In Fight Write you'll learn practical tips, terminology, and the science behind crafting realistic fight scenes for your fiction. Broken up into "Rounds," trained fighter and writer Carla Hoch guides you through the many factors you'll need to consider when developing battles and brawls. • In Round 1, you will consider how the Who, When, Where, and Why questions affect what type of fight scene you want to craft. • Round 2 delves into the human factors of biology (think fight or flight and adrenaline) and psychology (aggression and response to injuring or killing another person). • Round 3 explores different fighting styles that are appropriate for different situations: How would a character fight from a prone position versus being attacked in the street? What is the vocabulary used to describe these styles? • Round 4 considers weaponry and will guide you to select the best weapon for your characters, including nontraditional weapons of opportunity, while also thinking about the nitty-gritty details of using them. • In Round 5, you'll learn how to accurately describe realistic injuries sustained from the fights and certain weapons, and what kind of injuries will kill a character or render them unable to fight further. By taking into account where your character is in the world, when in history the fight is happening, what the character's motivation for fighting is, and much more, you'll be able write fight scenes unique to your plot and characters, all while satisfying your reader's discerning eye.

Living on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth. As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene. The essays are organized around two key figures that also serve as the publication’s two openings: Ghosts, or landscapes haunted by the violences of modernity; and Monsters, or interspecies and intraspecies sociality. Ghosts and Monsters are tentacular, windy, and arboreal arts that invite readers to encounter ants, lichen, rocks, electrons, flying foxes, salmon, chestnut trees, mud volcanoes, border zones, graves, radioactive waste—in short, the wonders and terrors of an unintended epoch. Contributors: Karen Barad, U of California, Santa Cruz; Kate Brown, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Carla Freccero, U of California, Santa Cruz; Peter Funch, Aarhus U; Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford U; Donna J. Haraway, U of California, Santa Cruz; Andreas Hejnol, U of Bergen, Norway; Ursula K. Le Guin; Marianne Elisabeth Lien, U of Oslo; Andrew Mathews, U of California, Santa Cruz; Margaret McFall-Ngai, U of Hawaii, Manoa; Ingrid M. Parker, U of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Louise Pratt, NYU; Anne Pringle, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Deborah Bird Rose, U of New South Wales, Sydney; Dorion Sagan; Lesley Stern, U of California, San Diego; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus U.

From the 'Monster of Ravenna' to the 'Elephant Man', Myra Hindley and Ted Bundy, the visualisation of 'real', human monsters has always played a part in how society sees itself. But what is the function of a monster? Why do we need to embody and represent what is monstrous? This book investigates the appearance of the human monster in Western culture, both historically and in our contemporary society. It argues that images of real (rather than fictional) human monsters help us both to identify and to interrogate what constitutes normality; we construct what is acceptable in humanity by depicting what is not quite acceptable. By exploring theories and examples of abnormality, freakishness, madness, otherness and identification, Alexa Wright demonstrates how monstrosity and the monster are social and cultural constructs. However, it soon becomes clear that the social function of the monster – however altered a form it takes – remains constant; it is societal self-defence allowing us to keep perceived monstrosity at a distance. Through engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Canguilhem (to name but a few) Wright scrutinises and critiques the history of a mode of thinking. She reassesses and explodes conventional concepts of identity, obscuring the boundaries between what is 'normal' and what is not.

Did you know human attacks account for a staggering 100 percent of premature deaths for witches, swamp monsters, cyborgs, and other supernatural, mutant, and exceptionally large beings? The past millennia or so has seen not only an uptick in human attacks, but also increasingly indiscriminate victim selection. It is understandable to feel overwhelmed. From renowned preternaturalist K. E. Flann, How to Survive a Human Attack provides critical information at a critical time with chapters specifically tailored to their target audience, including: · A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward · First-Time Haunter’s Guide for Ghosts, Spirits, Poltergeists, Specters, and Wraiths · Self-Training 101 for Werewolves: Sit, Don’t Speak, Stay Alive! · What’s Happening to My Body?: Radioactive Mutants and the Safety of the Nuclear Family

This work draws together a wide range of literature on contemporary technologies and their ethical implications. It focuses on advances in medical, reproductive, genetic and information technologies.